I am an evil giraffe. Who no longer blogs about politics.

…this being Paper Thin Leaf Indoor HDTV Antenna, can I get some feedback? I don’t have cable, and don’t particularly want it, either; but local news/programming might be nice. The problem is that my area is where audio and video reception goes to die, so I can’t really get a good signal from the cruddy antennas I had on the old TV.

My Suggestion: Just get the cable. You get the local channels piped into your house crystal clear and much more. You will also not be at the mercy of the weather. I’m not saying you have to get digital cable, but damn dude, at least come into the 1990s. Both you and my bloody parents have this insane notation/fear of cable, what is your beef dude?

I installed an HD antenna at our house about two months ago.
I think we’ve watched about 3 minutes of over the air programing since then. If you are used to going without, I predict that you won’t make much use of it.

The only use I can really think of is as a back up source of information in the event of a local disaster. You know, one of those disasters that disrupts the internet, but leaves local power up and running.

One thing to be wary of; HD antennas are directional and need a clear line of sight to the nearest broadcast antennas. This is why I don’t have any local televisions, despite buying a powered HD antenna; all my windows are facing East or West. The local HD broadcast antennas are to my North and South.

This may have changed and antennas might not be so dependent on direction. I stopped caring and just hooked up a PC to my HD TV and started watching stuff that way. No local news though. Not that I’ve tried. Youtube looks great though!

Call and talk to this company.http://www.solidsignal.com/
I have bought equipment from them and at times they have suggested the less expensive option.
It helps to have the distance from the transmission site(s), the hight of the tower, the hight of your house and if there is any thing in-between (like a hill) before you call.
The channels that you are trying to receive is also important information for them.
A good over the air antenna, rotator and booster is not inexpensive.
Not to mention if you are going to need a real tower and not a roof mount.
Self install of everything is a option and would save a bunch.

Plug in your address and it will tell you the compass bearing to your closest broadcast towers and the distance. Then it will recommend which antennae works best for your situation.

Out where I live the towers are about 32 miles away so I had to roof mount a medium sized antennae. It was about $35 at Fry’s for the antenna. I had a satellite dish on my roof from a previous dish network subscription. So I just remove the dish from the mount and bolted the antenna to it. I tried the indoor antenna and even tried an old aerial antenna mounted in the attic but it was frustrating when reception would blink in and out during a game or right in the middle of weather news. But since I’ve installed an antenna on the roof most of the channels come in crystal clear; sharper than cable and satellite IMO. Although NBC is flaky at random times. But it seems for me most all the broadcast towers are group together nice and tight but NBC is another 5 degrees SSW. So it comes down to, everything comes in fine except NBC or NBC is great but everything else is choppy. They even make a remote for your antenna so you can twist a dial back and forth a servo on the antenna will slew it back and forth so you can point it to the optimal direction for a given channel. Though I admit that’s getting into a obsessive nerd levels of antenna tech.